The audience of a new epic about the founding of New China are playing a new game -- guessing what role Jackie Chan or Zhang Ziyi plays.

About 200 established Chinese actors and directors including Jet Li and Chen Kaige starred in the film "Jian Guo Da Ye", or "The Founding of a Republic," which hit China's movie theaters Wednesday.

Most of the big stars' roles were small: Chan played a reporter frustrated in a interview with a Kuomintang official, and had a few lines.

He was a lot luckier than John Woo, director of several Hollywood action blockbusters, whose role was edited from the final movie.

Actress Zhang Ziyi played a representative of grassroots women Party members, discussing with Mao Zedong, then leader of Communist Party of China, and explaining why she preferred the five-star red flag as the national ensign.

Turning up as only faces or even silhouette, many popular stars did not even have a line.

The movie, which recounts China's history from 1945 to 1949, was made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Most stars were not paid, said Han Sanping, the film's chief director and board chairman of the state-owned China Film Group Corporation which produced the film.

"The film is a birthday gift to our motherland," he said. "I hope it will strike audiences as a sincere work."

The audience are surprised that so many stars are involved in a movie of this kind, which usually adopts a serious tone and focuses on reproducing historic scenes instead of attracting an audience.

At the film's premiere press conference, chief director Han said the film is an effort to link common people to mainstream political values.

"Six decades after its founding, especially three decades of fast economic progress, the New China is realizing softer areas of its power," Prof. Zhang Yiwu, of Peking University, said. "It has realized the importance of culture."

The overall box office of movies in the Chinese mainland hit 2.3 billion yuan (US$337 million) in the first half of this year.

"An audience made up of people with medium income has formed in the cities and the number of movie-goers is increasing in medium and small cities," he said.

Prof. Yin Hong, with the school of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, said the government has realized that without an audience, attempts to communicate softer areas of power are fruitless.

"The movie can be considered an attempt (to broaden audiences).More stars mean more attention will be attracted from the public," he said.

It has been an interesting point actors who do not participate in the film might be considered not so mainstream.

The film is taken as a creation of the current times.

Even famed Hong Kong stars such as Andy Lau who played a close aide of Chiang Kai-shek, then leader of the ruling Kuomintang and rival of Mao Zedong, took part.

The film did not invite a Taiwan actor. After losing the civil war in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island.

But a breakthrough was made in another mainland film, in which a Taiwan actor played the role of Chiang Kai-shek for the first time.

The film, "Shui Zhu Chen Fu", or "Who to Determine the Fate of the Country", is on same theme as "The Founding of a Republic". It will debut later this month.

"The participation (of stars) indicates a flexible and broader perspective. It also testifies to the government's greater confidence," Yin Hong said.

"The participation of famous Chinese actors, from home and abroad, in the film shows the strong attraction of the motherland, and is conducive to winning a greater youth audience and broadening the film's overseas market," said Zhu Hong, spokesman for the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, in response to reporters' questions about the actors' nationalities on Thursday.

A total of 1,450 copies of "The Founding of a Republic" have been issued in China's domestic cinemas, the biggest number for all Chinese movies. And cinemas in more than 10 countries including Thailand and New Zealand have bought copies of the movie, which will be shown around the National Day falling on October 1.

The box office hit 15 million yuan on its first day on Wednesday in China and is expected to climb to 100 million after the weekend.

"I am a fan of Jackie Chan and I will watch the film," said Zhang Jinghua, a taxi driver in Beijing.

Every star has fans like Zhang, there is no wonder the film will turn out to be rather popular.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2009)